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How to Introduce Yourselves in Tagalog

As a true born Filipino straight from the country Philippines, I’ve always wanted to share with you the language that I was born with: Tagalog.

You may not have heard of it at first (heck nobody does unless they truly know someone who’s Filipino OR they are Filipino themselves) but I would like to teach you, dear reader how to introduce yourself both formally and informally in my language.

So let’s begin!

The informal way to introduce yourself, say to someone who’s your age or someone who’s younger, you say this following phrase:

Ang pangalan ko ay si (insert name)

Ang pangalan ko is my name and ay si is basically is. So “my name is (insert name)”. The accent is quite different too! So if you don’t get it right at first, it’s all okay! Break it down word for word: Ang pa nga lan ko ay si and then you say your name!

Now, to be more formal, let’s say you are talking to someone who’s older than you, we normally use the words “po” and “opo”. Opo means yes in a formal tone and po is just a word inserted in a phrase when you’re answering or plainly talking to someone of higher position.

So instead of saying ang pangalan ko ay si (insert name), you say ang pangalan ko po ay si (insert name). The way to add the word “po” can be quite hard at first. Normally people question as to when we include it in our sentences. But I believe, from my own experience, we use that two letter word when we’re getting to our reasoning.